Abdoulaye Bah – Global Voiceshttps://globalvoices.org
Citizen media stories from around the worldTue, 26 Sep 2017 15:59:08 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.2Citizen media stories from around the worldAbdoulaye Bah – Global VoicescleanAbdoulaye Bah – Global Voiceswebmaster@globalvoices.orgwebmaster@globalvoices.org (Abdoulaye Bah – Global Voices)Creative Commons Attribution, see our Attribution Policy for details.Citizen media stories from around the worldAbdoulaye Bah – Global Voiceshttp://img.globalvoicesonline.org/Logos/GV-Logo-Vertical/gv-logo-below-square-144.gifhttps://globalvoices.org
Is Cameroonian Journalist Ahmed Abba’s Imprisonment Because of Security, or Is It an Attack on the Press?https://globalvoices.org/2017/08/31/is-cameroonian-journalist-ahmed-abbas-imprisonment-because-of-security-or-is-it-an-attack-on-the-press/
https://globalvoices.org/2017/08/31/is-cameroonian-journalist-ahmed-abbas-imprisonment-because-of-security-or-is-it-an-attack-on-the-press/#commentsThu, 31 Aug 2017 21:48:51 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=626458Correction: A previous version of this post mistakenly used a photo of a man named Simon Ateba, a journalist who at one time was also arrested by Cameroonian authorities. Simon Ateba has since been released; Ahmed Abba remains in prison.

On 30 July 2015, Ahmed Abba, a Hausa-language correspondent at Radio France International (RFI) in Maroua, northern Cameroon, was arrested by the security forces in connection with inquiries into the activities of militant group Boko Haram.

Two years later, he was convicted of “non-denunciation of terrorism” and “laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts” and was sentenced by a military court to 10 years in prison.

His supporters say the charges are unsubstantiated, and his Abba's case has led many to believe that this is an excuse for the Cameroonian government to attack press freedom. Abba had been tasked by RFI to cover the region and specifically the activities Boko Haram at the border of Cameroon and Nigeria.

Cameroon President Paul Biya has repeatedly stated that his country is “at war with Boko Haram.” Under the guise of this policy, Biya's government has cracked down on civil liberties and targeted journalists reporting on the situation. Three other journalists – Baba Wame, Rodrigue Tongue, and Félix Cyriaque Ebolé Bola – have also been prosecuted by a military tribunal for failing to disclose information and sources to the government.

Makaïla Nguebla, a Chadian blogger with experience of the abuses of authoritarian African regimes against human rights activists — having been forced into exile from Chad and then expelled from Senegal and Guinea — presented the facts after Abba was convicted in April 2017:

Ahmed Abba was arrested on 30 July 2015 in connection with his coverage of the attacks of the terrorist group Boko Haram. He spent six months being held in secret, during which he was physically abused, before finally being brought before a judge on 29 February 2016. Since then, requests for bail have been systematically ignored during the 17 sessions of his trial. The journalist will therefore have to serve a 10-year prison service. He has already spent 20 months in custody while awaiting this iniquitous verdict. The journalist's lawyers immediately announced their intention to appeal.

The Cameroonian national press and international press roundly condemned the weakness of the evidence presented against Abba. For journalist Masbé Ndengar:

The outcome of this trial has human rights defenders up in arms as much as it has the press freedom defenders up in arms. It turns out that no irrefutable evidence to convict the journalist exists. The accusation is based on an alleged telephone which is said to have belonged to a terrorist or one of his victims, and whose digital data is supposed to have been kept safe in a cybercafe run by Ahmed Abba. We see here a flagrant intent to harm. But what has a man who has only his microphone to carry out his work done to earn it? The Cameroonian authorities are visibly off-target. While they are engaged in a relentless struggle against press freedom, the real collaborators remain scot free in the streets of Yaoundé, Douala, Gamdéré, Maroua and so on.

If convicting Ahmed Abba is to be seen as an act of deterrence, it has failed, because it has prevented neither the terrorists, in this case Boko Haram, from continuing their depredations, nor the weak-minded from offering them their support.

Meanwhile, Olivier Tchouaffe denounced the methods of President Paul Biya, who has led Cameroon for the past 42 years — from 1975 to 1982 as prime minister and as pPresident since — beating all worldwide records for hanging on to power:

In any case, these prisoners are flung, for the most part, not into conventional jails, but into military or so-called maximum security facilities, institutions which Joël Didier Engo, the President of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CL2P) in Cameroon, has called “death camps”.

Ahmed Abba's case shows yet again a government which is misusing the concept of “reasons of state” to suborn justice and subject it to the government's own dictates.

No one can deny that Paul Biya's regime's methods of rapid and gutless obliteration call for nothing but implacable vigilance. The very stakes set by the present crisis afford us a glimpse of the extent of a machine for twisting facts – or, rather, for orchestrating lies – lies, that is, sinking to the level of their true category, of ‘how-to’ tips in the fight to foster a perennial dictatorship, for which only certain truths – its truths – are authorized, while all others must systematically be repressed. Naturally, these so-called official truths are pressed into service for the maintenance of Paul Biya's order of dominance, established for nearly 40 years now, and have never in reality had anything to do with Justice.

In an interview broadcast by RFI, Denis Nkwebo, president of the National Union of Journalists of Cameroon, an affiliate of the International Federation of Journalists, was quoted as saying:

This is an attack on the press. It's as if they want to criminalize journalism as an occupation in Cameroon. All they're accusing Ahmed Abba of is being a professional. At no point in this trial have we been given evidence that he was implicated in anything serious. The press has laboured up to now under a silent oppression, and Ahmed Abba's conviction is a strong message aimed at journalists who dare to carry on this occupation in a country which we are assured daily is democratic.

It must be said that his case is special. Firstly, for the first three months after his arrest, no one knew where he was or no one wanted to say. The authorities eventually admitted they were holding him secretly. And even then, the matter had to be raised with the president’s office. He had been transferred to the intelligence services in Yaoundé, he had been questioned without a lawyer being present, and he had been transferred directly to a military court without a proper judicial investigation. During this period, he was also clearly subjected to physical and psychological mistreatment. At the next hearing, we will ask for a special session to be scheduled so that the substance of the case can finally be considered.

In the same interview, Tchoungang told them he was kidnapped and drugged by persons unknown on the day one of the hearings. The lawyer went on to explain his firm conviction that different treatment was being meted out to his client in comparison with other journalists indicted on similar charges, such as Baba Wame, Rodrigue Ndeutchoua Tongue and Félix Cyriaque Ebolé Bola:

I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was initially arrested in the course of a routine check, but when the police learned that he was RFI’s correspondent, he was handed over to the political police in Yaoundé and was accused of passing information to the country’s enemies. I have checked all of his reporting and it is beyond reproach. In my view, the only aggravating circumstance is the fact that he works for a leading French radio station. As you know, there is a big anti-French current of opinion in Cameroon and some officials may have wanted to pull off a stunt.

What we now want is for Ahmed Abba to be freed, to be reunited with his family and, very importantly, to be able to return to work. I am convinced that I am defending an innocent man.

Abba's work with a France-based radio station is allegedly playing a role in his harsh sentencing. Anti-French sentiment in Cameroon is not new. This sentiment originates in what is perceived as unfair bilateral trade agreements that favors France in the mining industry and has expanded because of the French origin of weapons seized from the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram.

A hearing to appeal the conviction was scheduled for 17 August 2017, but without explanation, his case has been struck from the tribunal's agenda.

On its Facebook page, the Committee for the Liberation of Cameroonian Political Prisoners protested angrily:

Cameroon: No to the hostage taking of a journalist in a sordid diplomatic blackmail operation against France under cover of the necessary fight against terrorism!

All it really takes is a tyrant's fertile imagination to incubate a manoeuvre like this, for diverting and exploiting the necessary and legitimate fight against terrorism, with the unstated aim of carrying out an indirect and despicable act of diplomatic blackmail against his protecting power – France.

We demand nothing less than the release pure and simple of the Cameroonian Hausa-language correspondent of Radio France International (RFI), Ahmed Abba.

A Support Ahmed Abba Committee has been created, encompassing many personalities from the media and music worlds, as well as non-governmental organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, Africtivistes (a collective of African cyber-activists for democracy), the Committee to Protect Journalists, Journaliste en danger (Journalist in danger), and the International Federation of Journalists.

Correction: A previous version of this post mistakenly used a photo of a man named Simon Ateba, a journalist who at one time was also arrested by Cameroonian authorities. Simon Ateba has since been released; Ahmed Abba remains in prison.

Screen capture of a video of the floods in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from Breaking News YT channel.

The recent catastrophe which struck Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone, where torrential rains left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, demonstrated yet again the vulnerability of African cities and their increasingly fragile populations, especially the occupants of shanty towns.

The August 15 rains brought in their wake not only flooding but also unprecedented landslides. Predictably it was the poorest who were impacted the hardest.

Amid spiralling populations and low rural incomes, African capitals are exploding under demographic pressure. Shanty towns spring up daily and mushroom overnight. The state cannot keep up with the pace of population growth and so the problem expands. Only when large numbers of people look to settle in areas not intended for housing do the authorities intervene and take drastic measures.

This is what has happened in Conakry, the capital of Sierra Leone's neighbour, Guinea.

Without any regulations, a large group that came from the country's rural interior settled anarchically in the area around a river almost 20 years ago. The government recently launched an operation to demolish the district of Démoudoula, created at the turn of the milennium, spurring a sharp debate on social networks.

A bulldozer in action at Démoudoula. Photo credit: http://guinee28.info, used with permission

Author Alimou Sow, voted the best French-language blogger in 2013 by Deutsche Welle's Bobs jury, reacted to the demolitions on his Facebook page after he visited the sites concerned:

For several days now, in this neighbourhood in the Ratoma district of Conakry, bulldozers have been at work on the demolition of occupied houses, putting women and children on the streets, with no idea where to go, or who to look to for help. Their plight comes in July — a month when the heavens open remorselessly in Conakry. But who's going to trouble their heads about that?

These houses being destroyed by the State are so many dreams being shattered, so many familiar links broken, so many bodies degraded, so many hearts bruised. Every smashed brick represents months, if not years, of hard labour. A whole life demolished under the haggard gaze of children and the powerless gaze of parents.

In Guinea, we live for two things: our families and our homes. For us, when you've destroyed someone's house you will have destroyed their whole life. And no amount of compensation makes up for such a tragedy. But what is the charge against these victims of the July [demolitions]? Illegal occupation of the river Démoudoula (‘Land of the Chimpanzees’, in the Pular language), apparently.

And what is their fate? To be abandoned in the street! Is this so as to protect these fugitives from a possible flood, and so preserve their lives and belongings? Hardly, since as the saying goes “prevention is better than cure”. They should have been prevented from settling there in the riverbed earlier.

Didn't the corrupt agents of the State sell these poor people their plots in the first place? Besides, when it comes to risks in Conakry there are much worse ones elsewhere: the mining waste which threatens at one and the same time a human and an ecological catastrophe; the dumping of hydrocarbons at Kaloum, right by the Tombo central electricity station, where any explosion (God forbid) could ravage the whole of Kaloum; the various garrisons installed at the heart of the capital (who can forget the deadly explosion of the munitions store at Alpha Yaya camp in the early 2000s?), etc, etc.

Is it to protect the environment? Maybe. But is Démoudoula an isolated case in Conakry? What about the forests of Enta, Dabompa, Démoudoula? What about the many filled-in water channels in Conakry? What about the invasion and destruction of our coastline?Where are we left, with these devastating plans, condemned by civil society activists, for our waterfronts?

Is our Guinéan forest indeed “strong”, in a country where the principal source of energy is drawn from charcoal? What are we doing to promote alternative energies? How much does a bottle of gas cost in Guinéa? [Translator's note: Forêt Forte, or Strong Forest, is the name of a timber company based in the country]The chimpanzees of Démoudoula have long since been displaced, hunted and probably eaten. Now human beings are being displaced from here by digger trucks.

Let's say it was both to preserve the environment and to protect the river-dwellers and their property. Then this is neither the time nor the means. It ought to be done with appropriate timing (not in the midst of the rainy season), having regard for an adequate warning period and a clear plan for resettlement and compensation.

Finally, I think our State is suffering from “demolitionitis”. On the ruins of Kaporo-rails, hatred and delinquency have sprouted. Houses are being destroyed in order to build frustration, bitterness and hatred.

Alimou Sow is referring to Kaporo-rails, a Conakry neighbourhood razed to the ground in 1998, leaving more than 120,000 people on to the streets after the destruction of thousands of housing units, mosques and school buildings.

This moving intervention by Sow sparked many reactions, some supporting the state's intervention, others asking themselves the same questions as he does, but reaching different solutions.

I agree that the timing is very poorly chosen. But they must be removed by the state, which must in return support them, either by compensating them by taking away the fees from who those sold them the land… or else by supporting their action directly against the people who have ceded the land. But go they must.

Sény Touré meanwhile condemns a trail of negligence by the state which has hurt the poorest. In particular, he singled out the expropriation of a plot of land at the Ignace Deen Hospital to build a luxury hotel, as well as the sale of another property of over 3 hectares allegedly released by the state for the equivalent of 25 euros, displacing the original occupants.

This land, situated in one of the most dynamic zones of the Guinéan capital is being made home to the Résidence 2000 complex. The complex will consist of a hundred or so high-class apartments with a view of the southern harbour front and should attract rents starting from 2,000 euros a month.

The project is controversial not only because of the expulsion of the local population, but also for its negative environmental impact.

Too many paradoxes in this joint! They smash houses — built on a river bed, granted — but they have encouraged the construction of a hotel in the garden of the Ignace Deen Hospital! An ex-garden for patients converted into a hotel!

And the poor inhabitants of Koba who are suffering the effects of Résidence 2000? Who should they complain to? I say it once more: we see the mote in the other's eye, but not the beam in our own.

Alimou Sow, I don't know, but I have the impression that this regime is fond of social crises. And one last thing: what kind of contractor turfs people out in the middle of the winter? Makes no sense, but what the hell?

Another Facebook user, Ousmane Yattara, living in Nice, France, has offered several defences of the state's legal right to reclaim the land while calling on the government to compensate victims, and appealing to civil society to guard against anyone being above the law:

I encourage this action of the government in Démoudoula… I hope no one will be spared including the high-ups who have their houses there… the end of anarchy in Guinea is a dream… let this stand as an example to all those who buy in the protected zones… one day we'll destroy your houses… everyone must be compensated, that's all — even those who have no ownership deeds…

What irks me most in this story is this selective demolition. Kiridi Bangoura (a government minister) has his mansion right in the riverbed, but he isn't worried. Is there an agent of the state today who doesn't sleep in a luxurious palace with its feet in the water? Buildings erected with hundreds of cubic metres of earth tipped on all sides to repel the waters to get themselves a dry plot. Just the tempo you need to stir up a real mayonnaise, as all the ingredients are already assembled — and we are risking grievous consequences.

The Department of Housing suspended demolitions for humanitarian reasons for the period of June 15-October 15, after frequent protests by citizens and civil society organizations.

Nevertheless, as if to pour scorn on the victims, the announcement was published on June 29, only a few weeks after the demolition was scheduled to start on July 13.

In an announcement on July 19, 2017, the government promised to compensate citizens whose property deeds are recognized as regular, while prosecuting undocumented occupants.

Through his films featuring victims and their families, Paul Théa has long been involved in telling the stories of the horrors of Guinea's Camp Boiro. He has recently started a project documenting the slave route from where slaves were captured in the coastal regions of Guinea to their final destination in North America.

Before leaving Conakry to visit South Carolina, he spoke to Global Voices about his project, “The Slave Route”. The first part is the History of the Slave Port at Dominya, focusing on the arrival of the first colonisers, the church and the place at which slaves departed Guinea.

Global Voices (GV): Recently we've seen you post very enthusiastic messages on Facebook about reclaiming an old building. What is that all about?

Paul Théa (PT): It's all about a colonial building named PZ (Patterson/ Zochonis), after the company that built it. The building is on a site in Dominya in the Bossa Prefecture, next to the slave port and the European trading post. That makes it a highly symbolic place for our project, which aims to turn it into a museum about the slave route. My first request was refused more than 20 years ago and now, after the third attempt, I have been given authorisation by the Ministry of Tourism. It was time to do so because the building is very run-down. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the supporters who have helped me gain access to the site.

PT: In actual fact, there are several routes. We are working on finding out more about them at the moment. But I can mention the Timbo Route, from the capital of the historical Fouta Djallon state to the village of Farinya and the Nyara Belli/Lightburn trading point, and from the fort at Boké to the slave port of Dominya. There is the port of Dubréka, and the port of Benty in the Forécariah Prefecture. I am waiting for the maps of the routes before I can give more details.

GV: Are you the first person in Guinea to explore this painful past? How does your project differ from other initiatives?

PT: No, not at all. There have been many initiatives to shed more light on this painful past. For example, an international conference on “Oral Tradition and the Slave Trade” was held in Conakry in March 1997. In February the following year, a group of experts met in Copenhagen to discuss “European Archives of the Slave Trade”. Reports on both meetings have been published by UNESCO. However, to my knowledge, we are the first to propose a museum about slavery in Guinea and to include the history of slaves who were transported to South Carolina. What we propose has the advantage of presenting visitors with documentary videos, as well as having them experience the sites themselves. This is why I am making a documentary on this subject in Guinea and why I will go to South Carolina afterwards to meet the Gullah/Geechee community, who are the descendants of the slaves who came from the West African coast, Angola, and Madagascar.

GV: Could you tell us about the documentary that you are making about this? How did the idea come to you? How are you going ahead with the project?

PT: I drew up the first tourist guides in Guinea in May and June 2017. We went to the slave port of Dubréka, then Dominya as part of our fieldwork. The lightbulb moment came from the inhabitants’ accounts of how slaves were sent from the Dominya slave port to South Carolina. The internet and several conversations I had made me understand the scale of the triangular trade in the Rio Pongo. It was much larger than that of the Island of Gorée in Senegal. Amongst the white slavers who moved to the region were many Americans, such as Louis Lightburn. He was the husband of Nyara Belli, a well known slave trader of the time, from a large local family who had rice fields in South Carolina. The slaves were prized by the rice growers. Lightburn supplied his family with slaves. Still, in the Rio Pongo, slaves freed themselves and founded villages. It is impossible for a filmmaker to miss out on such a story!

GV: What is the Gullah/Geechee Nation that you have spoken about on your Facebook page?

As I was saying earlier, the slaves transported to South Carolina and all along the East Coast came from many different origins. They created the Creole language to understand one another and kept their African cultures, which they defend jealously to this day. Gullah is a corruption of Gola, a cultural group from Sierra Leone, and Geechee is a corruption of Kissi, another group from Sierra Leone and Guinea. They call themselves the Gullah/Geechee Nation and have a chief who goes all over the world to promote their culture, their language which is dying out, and to defend their rights, because they are also losing their ancestral lands.

GV: Are the American institutions cooperating with each other and with you?

PT: We have just finished writing up the project and we are going to send it to different institutions and even to slavery museums to see if they are willing to collaborate or to support the project financially.

GV: On that point, can we ask how you have financed the project up to now?

PT: Everything is being paid for out of my pocket for the moment. As I am not rich, I am appealing to supporters to sponsor the documentary at least. Of course, the sponsors’ names duly appear in the credits at the end of the video. It is work that requires time and money, but as it is important for the generations to come, I dedicate myself to it.

GV: Do UNESCO and the governments in question understand the importance of your research? Are you cooperating with the many civil organisations that are already working in this field?

PT: The Ministry of Tourism understands the importance of the slave route as a product that can attract tourists to Guinea. The way that leaders of the department acted to help me obtain the site proves that. I will present the project in Guinea in October after my trip to South Carolina, and at that moment I will talk about the level of collaboration with the insitutions.

Paul Théa is a filmmaker, radio and TV presenter, and communications specialist. He studied Economic and Social Administration at the University of Montpelier, France; IT Administration at Toulouse's Institut de Promotion Commerciale; and TV and Radio in the US. Théa's films can also be found on his YouTube channel.

July 11, 1987 marks the Day of 5 Billion, or the approximate date when the world reached a population of five billion. As a result, beginning in 1989 the United Nations Development Program created World Population Day, an event celebrated on July 11 each year in the hopes of attracting the world’s attention to the urgency and importance of population issues.

With resolution 45/216 passed in December of 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to keep World Population Day in order to promote awareness and, above all, to promote the links between population issues, the environment, and development. By 1990, many countries began following the UNDP’s lead and started celebrating the day in their own countries.

French president Emmanuel Macron created a polemic by linking the underdevelopment of Africa to its demography during a press conference at the G20 in Hamburg, Germany. At the G20, the new French head of state created the polemic by attacking African women's fertility. When asked about African development, Emmanuel Macron pointed to the ‘7 to 8 children’ from African women as a ‘societal’ problem. ‘Africa's challenge’, ‘It's societal’, stated Mr. Emmanuel Macron: ‘What are Africa's problems?’ He then cites ‘failed states, complex democratic transitions, a demographic change which is (…) one of the defining challenges for Africa’. ‘When countries still have 7 to 8 children per woman, you can decide whether to spend billions of euros, you stabilize nothing’, he followed.

Here is a video of the speech (click on image to play video):

screen capture of video of E. Macron from Indy100

While waiting for African heads of state to react to these remarks, members of the site visionguinee.info were astonished:

No statement, no reaction from any African presidents. The presidential chapels did not toll with bells of indignation. With a guilty silence, lasting just the right amount of time, African heads of state, regional organization or sub-regional, did not release any statements lamenting or framing Macron's condescending comments on the exploding demography which is curbing Africa's development… The media outcry concerning Macron's comments matches the reactions of indignation and condemnation on social media. Responding to an Ivorian reporter's questions at the G20 summit in Germany, Macron made the link between the underdevelopment of Africa and the demographic explosion on the continent in remarks which resembled Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 Dakar speech.

Facebook user Bouba Camara, in response to a comment by Mohamed Camara, president of the Association for the Promotion of Democracy and Good Governance, supported the French president's remarks but also added his own criticism, writing:

My dear president the fact that we have a growing demographic is a fact which no one can deny, but the question that we must ask: is this up to a non-African president to tell our women how many children they should have? I say no because French Colonial Africa is behind us. I believe rather it is for our respective African governments to fight against this trend, and only if it is truly a liability. Doing this by opting for good birth and infant mortality policies, but also implementing a family planning system as all other concerned governments do for their populations; without omitting that what he shames us for is also an advantage in another sense, because African populations are largely young and active, thus guaranteeing retirement for our predecessors. While in the West, the population is aging, inactive, and so inactive so their retirement is in danger, this is a fact.

I believe Macron has felt the full extent of our anger. From now on he and others will take a moment before broaching with glibness the difficult realities of Africa. What was the shocking for me is the twisting of reality. Beyond the impression of a lecturing teacher, overall, his comments are false. From the Marshall Plan, to public development aid via the demographic issue in order to finish on the diagnoses of problems which plague the continent. A damaging, simplistic generalization and lack of accountability for his own country and continent on the situation Africa is in. To the Africans who say that the best way to respond to Macron is to ignore him, I want to know why you are opening your mouths? Shut it, and let us answer. We're not responding out of emotion, we're responding in order to establish the truth!

Noel Gnimassou, living in Fria, a city in the interior of Guinea, observed:

Here is what irritates me about Africans: they assume the right to criticize the West, to mock them, even insult them. Sarkozy this, Trump that, Macron's a racist, etc. We publish jokes, photos, and caricatures of them. We dissect and condemn their statements often by questioning their ability to handle the affairs of their own country and of the world. But we Africans barely tolerate the least bit of criticism towards us, be it objective or constructive.

This observation generated a number of reactions, not always in agreement. Clairefall Fatou, a stylist who is based in Dakar, wrote:

Why not have 7 or 8 children when one can support them? It's a joy living in a big family! We have to be proud of our culture, it's beautiful and what works for others does not necessarily work for us Africans. Stop underestimating us! We have potential, and I believe everyone must set to work for the future of Africa.

The debate was not limited to social media users. In fact, even the president of the African Union, Alpha Condé, head of state of Guinea, entered the debate. While Guinea is the country which sends the third most migrants to Europe across the Mediterranean, he was indignant, outspoken, and declared:

When you speak of the explosive demographic, this is Malthusian, this is against Africa. Today, the other continents envy our demography, because they are an aging population. Our youth is our advantage. Therefore, we must adapt our language for what we want for Africa.

There is good reason to wonder if “His Excellency the Professor Alpha Condé President of Guinea”, as the media officials call him, spoke on behalf of all his peers. In fact, World Population Day, with its theme of Family Planning, was celebrated in nearly all of Africa. For example in Niger, the minister of population, Dr. Kaffa Rakiatou Christelle Jackou, and in Burkina Faso, Ms. Rosine Coulibaly, minister in charge of development, minister of economy, of finance and of development, emphasized the importance of controlling the growing demographic, as well as the need to improve access to family planning methods for women's empowerment and reduce the challenges that the exploding demography poses to weak African economies.

Even in Guinea itself there seemed to be mixed reactions, with the national director of population and development (DNPD), Mohamed Sano, emphasizing that Guinea would also be celebrating World Population Day under the theme of Family Planning, like its international peers.

Screenshot from the documentary on the role of France in the Tutsi genocide -

Identifying the guilty parties in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and bringing them into justice continues to this day despite limited resources and enormous legal and political obstacles. Determining who bears responsibility at the international level, both as far as governments like that of France, as well as supranational bodies, still needs to be cleared 23 years after the genocide.

But last June 2017, three human rights NGOs filed a lawsuit in the high court of Paris against the French bank BNP Paribas for the latter's alleged complicity in committing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rwanda.

The Rwandan genocide occurred from April 7 to mid-July 1994 and was a mass slaughter of Tutsi by members of the Hutu majority government in Rwanda at that time. An estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the massacre. The genocide ended when the Tutsi-backed and heavily armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame took control of the country. During the Hutu majority government, France maintained very close relations with the government and assisted the military of Rwanda against the RPF during the Civil War. During the first few days of the genocide, France launched a military operation to evacuate expatriates from Rwanda but they refused to allow any Tutsi to accompany them.

In a press release published on 29 June 2017, the NGOs Sherpa, the Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda (CPCR) and Ibuka France explained the reasoning behind their legal action against the group BNP Paribas:

The bank would have agreed to transfer in June 1994, one month after the UN had voted an arms embargo and during the genocide, 1.3 million dollars from an account of its client, the National Rwandan Bank (BNR in French) to the Swiss account of a South African arms dealer, Mr. Ehlers.

Mr. Ehlers would have then gone to the Seychelles with a Hutu colonel Mr. Théoneste Bagosora to agree upon the sale of eighty tons of arms, on June 17th, which would then have been transported to Gisenyi (Rwanda) via Goma (Zaire). During his testimony in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the colonel Bagosora confirmed that weapons coming from the Seychelles via Goma served to “give a hand to Kigali”(Capital city of Rwanda) [1].

Further, the Brussels Lambert Bank (BBL in French) had refused the request to use the funds of the Commercial Bank of Rwanda (BCR in French) because of the UN arms embargo. According to the testimony of a person posted by the BBL in Rwanda, the banking sector, who already was under the obligation to inquire that its clients explain the destination of the funds under unusual circumstances, knew “the Rwandan government had a crucial need for fund […] it was clear for everyone that they had to buy weapons and ammunition. That Rwanda was under an embargo”. According to him, the BNP could have been the only bank which had agreed to provide financial resources to Rwanda.

Thus, according to the testimonies and investigation reports, such as the UN International Investigation Commission, the proceedings prove that the BNP knew the destination of the funds and that it could contribute to the ongoing genocide.

This is the first time such a complaint is initiated against a bank in France on such a legal basis.

The NGO TRIAL International summarized the case against Hutu Commander M. Théoneste Bagosora, who was condemned to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on 18 December 2008 for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes; but whose sentence was reduced to 35 years in prison through an appeal on 14 December 2011:

Bagosora was considered to be the “mastermind of the genocide” and already in 1990, was reported to have developed a plan whose intent was to exterminate the Tutsi civilian population, eliminate all opponents and thereby keep a hold on power. According to the bill of indictment, this plan, made up of several elements, included having recourse to hatred and ethnic violence, the military training and distribution of arms to militias as well as the drafting of lists of people to be eliminated. In the execution of this plan, Bagosora and his accomplices were said to have organised, ordered and participated in massacres perpetrated

The three NGOs are working with SumOfUs, launched an international petition in French, English and German to demand that the financial institutions be held responsible for their role in committing human rights violations in Rwanda. Launched on 29 June 2017, the petition has already collected more than 154,000 signatures addressed to the Macron government and the new members of the French parliament.

this legal action would shed light on the potential responsibility of financial institutions when it comes to war crimes, and also human rights abuses.

France has just elected a new President and legislature. With an international outcry, we can ask the new government to strengthen financial sector regulations for BNP and others. The statute on the duty of care of multinational corporations, voted on 21 February 2017, and which applies to banks, should from now on prevent the involvement of financial institutions in such violations.

The culpability of the banking group must not obscure those of the French government, which was suspected by a number of witnesses at the time of the genocide of having aided those committing the genocide in their activities. In his book “La France au cœur du Génocide des Tutsi”, freely available online, author Jacques Morel writes:

France contributed to training and the international recognition of the government which organised the massacres. It evacuated its citizens and fled. It blocked any action by the United Nations Security Council. It attained a mandate that from it, under the pretext of protecting populations in danger, which allowed the escape of its allies pursued by the Rwandan Patriotic Front. This, in the face of the refusal by UN peacekeepers to intervene to stop the massacres of the Tutsi, take control of arms, and put an end to what the United Nations recognized as the genocide of the Tutsi.

Morel is a mathematician who worked at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He is known for his extensive research on the role of France in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Morel unpacks in further details the arguments laid out in his book in the video below:

Pope Francis, in receiving President Paul Kagame for his first visit to Vatican, recognised the guilt of certain members of the Rwandan clergy and asked for forgiveness. Will France one day have the courage to do as much? For the moment, it continues to turn a deaf ear. However, that is without considering the determination of the human rights NGOs to fight impunity.

For example, the association Survie recently filed a lawsuit against the politicians and French military alleging “complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity”.

Even amongst members of the French armed forces that operated in Rwanda and even outside of the country, people are beginning to talk. The former French Army Officer during the genocide, Guillaume Ancel, affirmed on the public news service France Info “that his superiors had clearly asked him to deliver arms to those committing genocide in the refugee camps.”

Denis Sassou-Nguessou, president of the Repubic of the Congo, left, boards his aircraft to leave the country. ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Washington D.C. a work of the U.S. federal government,- Public Domain

Julienne Sassou-Nguesso and Guy Johnson, the daughter and son-in-law of the president of the Republic of the Congo, are under investigation for money laundering of embezzled funds as part of the high-profile “Ill-gotten goods” inquiry. This development follows the investigation into Wilfrid Nguesso, the president's nephew.

Launched by the French justice system, the wide-ranging inquiry focuses on the assets of three African presidents, their families, and their entourages. The secretive way these funds have been accumulated and held outside the presidents’ own countries has attracted the attention of several anti-corruption bodies.

Since 2010, inquiry judges have been examining allegations that three presidential families have built large fortunes by taking public money from their own countries and siphoning it through intermediaries and off-shore companies located in tax havens. The presidents in question are the late Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equitorial Guinea.

In this case, the judges also intend to probe links between Julienne Sassou-Nguesso and Guy Johnson and companies registered abroad, for example in Mauritius, the British Virgin Islands, Dubai and Hong Kong. The website afriqueexpansion.com explains:

The investigators are trying to find out whether offshore companies in Mauritius, the British Virgin Islands, Dubai and Hong Kong have been used to fund numerous purchases in France, according to a source close to the case. Between 2008 and 2011, tens of millions of euros from the Congolese public purse are thought to have passed through these companies.

The investigations are also centered on Socotram — the Congolese Maritime Transport Association, which collects license fees from shipping and the transport of crude oil. Wilfred Nguesso is head of the organisation. The same source indicates that both he and his entourage may have benefited from the embezzlement of the association's funds.

Mr Nguesso contests this, denying that Socotram is able to collect public funds.

After the first accusations in 2007 and 2008, which were never followed up, the NGO Transparency International lodged a civil complaint. This led to the opening of a judicial investigation in 2010 by specialist financial judges.

Journalist Eunice Kaoumé has researched the affair closely. She reports that Julienne Sassou-Nguesso was once an insurance agent and that Guy Johnson practises law. Here follows what she has written for afrikmag.com:

According to the investigations, it is thought that several tens of millions of euros from public bodies in Congo-Brazzaville have been transferred to the accounts of different offshore businesses based in the Seychelles, Mauritius and Hong Kong since 2007. A well-informed source says that these funds are believed to partly finance the lifestyle of certain members of the president's circle.

The same source affirms that investigators think the couple may have financed some of the work with the sale of Julienne Sassou-Nguesso's share of a telecommunications company thought to be linked to “corrupt dealings”. Funds are believed to have been siphoned through a Seychellois company. The role of the president's son-in-law, Guy Johnson, is also under scrutiny. He is the director of a private property company which bought a distinctive hotel for some 19 million euros in the well-heeled 8th Arrondissement of Paris in 2007. Notably, the shares of the property company were held by members of Omar Bongo's circle, as well as his wife, the now deceased Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba, who was the eldest daughter of the Congolese President Sassou-Nguesso.

Judicial authorities have already seized properties belonging to the Sassou-Nguesso clan, as well as 10 or so luxury cars.

The most corrupt sectors are customs, tax collection and the treasury. Furthermore, Congo's perception of corruption index fluctuated between 2.1 and 2.3 in the years 2015-2016, according to Transparency International.

In the health sector, corruption endures despite decrees from the head of state to introduce free treatments for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, caesarian sections and other obstetric procedures, and malaria.

Indeed, dishonest officials still practice their dark arts in the hospitals. Taking medication from patient's bags, they sell it back to relatives, who are forced buy in order to keep their loved-one alive. “If we don't buy the medication, they object to treating the sick person as a punishment to those who have refused”, confided a parent whose son was suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting.

When the facts come out, we send the file or files to the prosecutor to begin proceedings. The CNCCF does not have the power to do so. Unfortunately it must be said that none of our files has been the subject of a legal action.

That is tantamount to calling the institution an empty shell, with no other use than to create a smokescreen to the international community. Moreover, Transparency International's 2016 report ranks the Republic of Congo 159th out of 170 countries, according to its Corruption Perceptions Index.

To find out more about the “Ill gotten goods” affair in Africa, here are several reports for reference:

Teodorín N. O. Mangue and his father at the United Nations – public domain

Despite his attorneys’ many objections, the trial of Mr. Teodorín Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president and son of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, opened in Paris on June 19, 2017. The Parisian court will examine the charges against Teodorín, including “laundering of misused public funds”, “embezzlement of public funds”, “violation of the public trust”, and “corruption”. The suit was brought by two non-governmental organizations, Sherpa and Transparency International.

In March 2007, CCFD-Terre Solidaire (Catholic Committee Against Hunger and For Development) posted a discussion paper online entitled ‘Ill-Gotten Gains…Too Often Won: The Wealth of Dictators and Western Complacency’. The landmark study, downloaded over 100,000 times, backed up the charges made in France against Omar Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema. The latter was also pursued in Spain. An updated version of the report was published two years later in 2009, entitled: ‘Ill-Gotten Gains… Cui Bono?’. This report reviewed the diverted assets of more than thirty leaders of developing countries. The CCFD-Terre Solidaire estimates that in the last few decades between 105 and 180 billion dollars were stolen by about thirty authoritative leaders and kleptocrats on several continents (Africa, Asia, and South America). For their part, the World Bank and the United Nations estimate that developing countries lose between 20 and 40 billion dollars each year to corruption.

The defendant, who could afford a long legal procedure, engaged in a battle with France that has now lasted ten years. Kouamé L. – PH. Arnaud KOUAKOU from burkina24.com lays out the facts:

Ten years ago, the NGOs Sherpa and Transparency International filed their first complaints against Teodorin Obiang concerning his ‘ill-gotten wealth’. From that point until the opening of the case against the president’s son, there was a series of legal twists and turns and asset seizures: exotic cars, luxury watches, and real estate in Paris. The defendant did not deign to travel to Paris and was represented by three lawyers there. According to Africanews, their strategy consisted in arguing that he benefits from diplomatic immunity, as he is vice president of a foreign government.

Though its population totals just 759,451, Equatorial Guinea is the seventh highest oil-producing country in Africa. In 2008, the income per capita reached the sum of $41,267.13 , higher than that of Germany in 2015, at $41,178.50. The country’s economy depends on this production and the income per capita decreased to $14,439.60 in 2015 due to the fall in oil prices over the past few years. This is still higher than several European Union member states, and Equatorial Guineans are the richest Africans on average.

Unfortunately, this is only true in theory since the riches surging from under ground and sea are poorly distributed. Though the ruling class grew more wealthy, spending in the public domain didn’t increase. Summarizing a report it published, the human rights defender Human Rights Watch stated:

For example, the vaccination rates are some of the worst in the world. Vaccination against tuberculosis in newborn babies and infants fell from 99% in 1997 to 35% in 2015. More than half of the population of Equatorial Guinea does not have access to safe drinking water nearby, a rate which hasn’t changed since 1995. In 2012, 42% of primary school-aged children (46,000 children) did not attend school, ranking seventh in the world.

Prestige spending has increased, absorbing enormous sums for the benefit of a privileged minority. In a statement on hrw.org, researcher Sarah Saadoun called on President Macron to go further in the fight against money laundering and condemned such practices:

The most expensive and perplexing project is the new capital, Oyala, right in the middle of the jungle. It's the third capital in this country of one million inhabitants. After spending billions on the construction of ministerial buildings in Malabo, the current island capital, and in Bata, the continental capital, the government budgeted an additional eight billion dollars (more than seven billion euros) for Oyala according to the IMF, which estimates this would make up half of the country’s 2016 budget.

Troubling elements have led us to believe that this massive spending on infrastructure will likely be used for personal benefit. For instance, it seems that the president, the first lady and Teodorin together own the construction company and have a monopoly on cement imports. The new capital’s construction has also attracted foreign entities, including some French companies. One example is Egis Group, which is responsible for the design of the city.

Between prestigious residences in enchanting locations, luxury cars, collections of Hollywood and sports memorabilia, and tax havens, the vice president of Equatorial Guinea doesn’t hold back on his self-indulgence. For example, the site vesper.media reveals that the value of his two yachts, Ebony Shine, 75.75 meters long and Ice, 90 meters, is equivalent to ten times the annual education budget in Equatorial Guinea and seventeen times that of the public health. The maintenance alone of Ebony Shine would cost “approximately $800,000 per month, not including fuel”.

His father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been in power since 1979 and was reelected in 2016 with 93.7% of the vote. As usual, he named a new government in which the juiciest positions went to family members and allies. In an article entitled‘Equatorial Guinea:The Statein theHandsofthe Presidential Family’, published last September, Ondo Ololobi lists the presidential family members who are part of the government and reveals the immense wealth of Mrs. Constancia Mangue de Obiang, the most powerful personage in the regime. Excerpt:

She is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s wife. The president has fallen completely under her influence. She uses all kinds of subterfuge and abuse of authority to elevate her first son, Teodorín Nguema Obiang Mangue, to the Equatorial Guinean presidency. She is very discreet, a multibillionaire, and she rarely appears on the political scene. She is, however, the one pulling the strings at the presidential palace behind the scenes. Through her cunning, she was able to place 30 out of 70 ministers (for a country of 710,000 inhabitants) in the government, all of whom come from the presidential clan.

Fall armyworm from the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility – Public Domain

As African economies begin to emerge from the global financial crisis of the last decade, a new threat to the agricultural sector in many countries may slow recovery: the invasion of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda).

Originally from the Americas, the fall armyworm was first detected in west and central Africa at the beginning of 2016 (Sao Tome and Principe, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo). About a year later, it was found in Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. And the invasion isn't showing signs of stopping anytime soon.

The larva of the fall armyworm, originally from the Americas, was recently introduced into Africa and has already wreaked havoc on grain crops. Corn has been especially affected in Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Ghana. According to the UN, Malawi, Mozambique, and Namibia have been similarly afflicted.

These caterpillars eat southern African food staples, such as corn, wheat, millet, and rice. Southern Africa has already been hit by one of the worst droughts in recent years.

The caterpillar invasion has caused terrible damage in the affected countries. As a result, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened an emergency meeting in Zimbabwe during which experts from 13 countries gathered to adopt a strategy for fighting this disaster. A local journalist, Sally Nyakanyanga, reported on the story for humanitarian crisis news site IRIN:

Spodoptera frugiperda is a formidable foe. Pesticides only work when the larvae are very small and before they have begun to cause visible damage to the crop. After that, there are no quick fixes. The pest can cause crop losses of more than 70 percent.

Sally Nyakanyanga went on to describe a farmer who tried to get rid of the caterpillar with the crop protection products that he had used in the past against native armyworms. But, because the fall armyworm is a different species, these products had no effect:

Vavariro Mashamba, 51, hoped to harvest 10 tonnes of maize from each of the 20 hectares he planted in his farm in the Karoi district, in north-central Zimbabwe. But when he started to see ragged holes on the foliage of his crop and sawdust-like frass near the whorl and upper leaves of the plants, he knew he was in trouble. His best hope now is a yield of six or seven tonnes per hectare.

“At first I thought it was the African armyworm (Spodoptera exempta) that was damaging my crops. I bought Carbaryl pesticide and sprayed on the plants. There was no change. Instead, the worms continued to multiply in my field,” Mashamba told IRIN.

Experts from the Ministry of Agriculture visited his farm, but by then it was too late to eradicate the fall armyworm (The “fall” part of the name comes from the caterpillar’s feeding habits: In its native Americas, it does most damage in late summer and early autumn – or “fall” in US English. See here for more details).

As recently as early June 2017, Guinea was not on the FAO's list of affected countries, but fall armyworms have now been found there, too. Journalist Ousmane Koumanthio Tounkara spoke to Abdoulaye Kaloga Diallo, an official in charge of protecting vegetation, for an article on local news site Aminata:

Some particularly voracious armyworms have been ravaging the Mali prefecture since the end of May and have invaded 21 villages in rural Yembering, attacking the wild plant life.

As of mid-year, 250 hectares of vegetation have been eaten by the unwelcome visitors. Those charged with protecting the vegetation think that the lack of rain has something to do with the catastrophic invasion of so many insects.

As effective resources remain unavailable, no response has been made beyond public awareness campaigns.

Abdourahamane Barry, from the collaborative website Guinéenews, thinks that the situation is even more serious. He reported that the infestation has already killed some regional farmers’ livestock:

After invading the Mali, Tougue, Labe, and Koubia prefectures, these unwelcome caterpillars have now reached Dondé, a district within the Parawol sub-prefecture in the Lélouma prefecture. The destructive caterpillars are eating nearly everything in their path.

Guinéenews’ local editor spoke to the regional head of vegetation protection, who confirmed the presence of the caterpillars.

“There are, undoubtedly, caterpillars in Labe's five prefectures. These insects are damaging the crops. They've finished eating the wild plants and are now going into the villages where there is more vegetation. They eat everything in their path. All plant life is at risk,” explained Alpha Oumar Bah.

In some areas, goats as well as vegetation, have fallen victim to these caterpillars. Eleven goats in Diogoma, in the Sannoun sub-prefecture in the Labé prefecture, are dead after having grazed on leaves on which the caterpillars were perched.

Clearly, this larva is already an extreme nuisance that eats everything it possibly can. As a moth, it can travel more than 100 kilometers and reproduce quickly. In an area of the world already known for its food insecurity, the devastating consequences of this invasion are difficult to predict.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2017/06/29/fall-armyworms-are-ravaging-crops-in-many-african-countries/feed/09.6411858 -13.5784016The 1944 Thiaroye Massacre in Senegal, a Shameful Episode of the French Colonial Period in Africahttps://globalvoices.org/2017/06/23/the-1944-thiaroye-massacre-in-senegal-a-shameful-episode-of-the-french-colonial-period-in-africa/
https://globalvoices.org/2017/06/23/the-1944-thiaroye-massacre-in-senegal-a-shameful-episode-of-the-french-colonial-period-in-africa/#respondFri, 23 Jun 2017 14:34:59 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=619985

Screenshot of Thiaroye Camp from the film Le Camp de Thiaroye by Ousmane Sembene on YouTube.

On December 1, 1944, an unspeakable tragedy took place at the military camp of Thiaroye, a small village in the suburbs of Dakar. Thirty-five Senegalese Tirailleurs (a type of rifleman or sharpshooter) were killed, according to official records, but other testimonies reported more than 300 dead, gunned down by colonial troops after protesting to be paid for their military service. The general public did not learn of this tragedy until 1988, when a film called “Camp de Thiaroye,”bySenegalese cineaste and writer Sembène Ousmane, was released.

The massacre is symptomatic of the French colonial power’s contempt for the African soldiers who had fought for its liberation during World War II. The film, which was produced by Senegal and Algeria, was banned in France for 17 years before being becoming available on DVD in 2005.

The Facebook page “Massacre du 1er Décembre 1944 : CAMP DE THIAROYE” (Massacre of December 1, 1944: CAMP THIAROYE) was created to honor the victims, killed by their metropolitan army comrades with whom they had fought the Nazi enemy. The course of events is recalled:

On December 1, 1944, African soldiers, liberators of France, were massacred by… France itself. These African servicemen, commonly known as the Senegalese Tirailleurs, had committed one crime: that of being African.

Indeed, how else could the assassination they suffered be explained? These African Tirailleurs, who mostly had been recruited by force and who had repeatedly been told that France is the motherland, fought the Nazi enemy with conviction and finally triumphed. They were proud of that victory and were afterwards demobilized, arriving at Camp Thiaroye in Senegal on November 21, 1944. In spite of four long years of absence, the trauma of war, and the loss of their many comrades who perished in combat or were shot by the Nazis, their faces shone with happiness to finally be reunited with their families. They did not suspect that they would never again see their loved ones or home countries, for those originating from other parts of the continent. There were 1,280 of them, coming from all over French West Africa.

On November 30, 1944, however, there was a revolt at Camp Thiaroye. It came about after they demanded to be paid their salary arrears and demobilization allowance, which had already been denied to them in France before they returned to Africa. They thus took General Damian as hostage. The night of December 1, 1944, the battalion of Saint-Louis stormed the unarmed camp without warning. There were about 30 survivors who were condemned to one to 10-year prison terms, fined, and denied their mobilization pay. They were only released in 1947, by France's then-President Vincent Auriol. They were not restored their rights and were not entitled to a retirement pension.

In contrast, the French administration tried to minimize the contribution of these soldiers in an effort to avoid paying what it owed them, before finally killing them.

In a 2014 letter and petition addressed to French President François Hollande, the Vigilance Committee on the Public Use of History (Comité de Vigilance face aux usages publics de l’histoire), an advocacy organization that aims to rectify the historical recollection of the French colonial period, broke down the lies of the state and denounced the attitude of the French authorities in this affair:

These men had fought for France and demanded to be paid for their time as POWs. Their request had been refused by the Dakar military authorities, which was a transgression of the regulations at the time. This despoliation was covered up by the then Ministry of War. It falsely stated in a circular dated December 4, 1944 — thus after the massacre — that the repatriated soldiers had received the totality of their compensation before their departure from France.

A massacre premeditated and concealed.

Aiming to silence the legitimate claims of these men, an operation of the armed forces was mounted to crush/diminish the rebels. To conceal the massacre, certain officers produced damning reports and fabricated an official account of a mutiny. In these reports, the ex-prisoners of war are described as being paid by the Germans and heavily armed. In order to justify the heavy response, they were accused of being the first to shoot.

For decades, this attempt to erase all traces of the massacre succeeded so well that we still don’t know, 73 years later, how many soldiers were massacred or where the victims’ remains lie.

An article by Benoit Hopquin, published in Le Monde culture et idées in March 23, 2013, presents the struggle of historian Armelle Mabon in this matter. A lecturer at the University of Southern Brittany and specialist in prisoners of war from the French ex-colonies, she has striven to uncover the lies of the French Army and to bring the truth to light:

The shooting began shortly after 9 am, but what followed isn't clear. The reports are so contentious that the historian has to become a sort of detective. Testimony written by Lieutenant-Colonel Le Berre diverges from that of Battalion Chief Le Treut, Captain Olivier, Colonel Carbillet, General Dagnan, Lieutenant-Colonel Siméoni, Gendarmerie Lieutenant Pontjean, Colonel Masle, and General de Perier, who initiated a commission of inquiry in 1945. Certain circulars and reports are nowhere to be found. “They’ve disappeared,” explains the historian, who explored the various centers where the documents of the time are preserved, in France and in Senegal.

Successive accounts communicate the idea of a response to machine or submachine gunfire from the mutineers. General Dagnan had a list made of the weapons allegedly found. Armelle Mabon had this list examined by experts from the French Association of Arms Enthusiasts. Something doesn’t add up in this inventory, and the response to it – a tank, two half-track vehicles, and three armored cars – is totally unjustified.

Officially, 35 sharpshooters were killed on December 1, the figure used by François Hollande in his speech in Dakar. Twenty-four were reported to have died during the attack and eleven at the hospital. But General Dagnan’s December 5 report cited “24 killed and 46 wounded transported to the hospital and deceased thereafter,” for a total of 70 victims. “What could he have stood to gain by overstating the number of deaths?” asks the historian, who gives credence to this last figure.

We still don't know where they are buried, probably in a mass grave nearby or in the small, forgotten military cemetery of Thiaroye. Jean Suret-Canale was one of the very first to evoke this episode in Tome II of his General History of Western Africa (1963). I heard about it towards the end of 1970 from some Senegalese friends who had a vague idea of what had happened. I went looking for the cemetery but had trouble finding it, since no one knew where it was. It was hidden behind a small wall not very far from the road heading towards the Petite Côte. Today it has been restored and is well maintained.

In November 2014, through the voice of President Hollande, France paid homage to the victims of this crime – but it still did not apologize. France did not facilitate the acquisition of French nationality for the Senegalese Tirailleurs until 70 years after World War II was over; this measure would help the soldiers and their family acquire French citizenship if they wish to do so.

In Africa, there have been some initiatives to commemorate them. Senegal instituted a Tirailleurs’ Day in memory of all the soldiers who fought wars alongside France. Its theme this year was “Les évènements de Thiaroye : histoire et mémoire” (The Events of Thiaroye: History and Memory). In Bamako, Mali, a monument was specifically dedicated to the victims of Thiaroye.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Burundi since the crisis began in 2015. Copyright: EU/ECHO/Anouk Delafortrie. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Two years into the crisis that has been tearing Burundi apart, the situation in the country remains grim.

Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser for the prevention of genocide, wrote a letter to the UN Security Council in March 2017 warning of the risk of “mass” violence. And in the same month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein addressed global human rights issues, expressing particular worry over Burundi:

In Burundi, I am concerned that the democratic space has now been virtually extinguished. Grave human rights violations and abuses by security forces and the Imbonerakure militia continue to be reported, including increasing allegations of enforced disappearances, torture and mass arbitrary arrests [of opposition members]…Following the release of the report by the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi in September 2016, the Government of Burundi suspended its cooperation with my Office in Burundi pending ongoing review of our MOU.

The crisis began after President Pierre Nkurunziza made the controversial decision to seek a third term in office, “a move deemed illegal by the opposition as well as members of his own party,” explains Radio France Internationale:

There have been deadly consequences. Some 500 to 2,000 people have been killed, according to the UN and some NGOs, hundreds have been reported missing, and nearly 400,000 people have been exiled.

Nkurunziza’s re-election bid had a devastating impact on the trust between the administration and the population, immediately triggering several protests. The protesters claimed that a third term is a violation of the country's constitution which says no president can be elected more than twice.

Furthermore, Nkurunziza also stated that he will do away with the 2005 Arusha accords, a peace agreement created to implement a power-sharing deal for political institutions and to integrate the various rebel groups into the state military, using an ethnic quota system to ensure more balanced representation. Those two issues provoked instant mass demonstrations, clashes with the polices, and the flight of large numbers of ethnic groups. The exodus was triggered by the permanent threat posed by Nkurunziza's youth wing, the Imbonerakure, who are implicated in political violence targeting opposition members.

According to the Radio France Internationale article, the government rejects these accounts despite the overwhelming amount of evidence, claiming they are part of a political agenda and an international plot to oust the current leadership.

However, a video that circulated on the internet in April 2017 features young members of the Imbonerakure singing slogans that encourage raping Tutsi women. The ruling party and the Imbonerakure are ethnically composed in majority of Hutus. The other major ethnic group in the country is the Tutsis, whose tense relationship with the Hutus are at the origin of past conflicts in Rwanda and Congo.

On April 4, 2017, a blogger for the local news site Yaga, Spageon Ngabo, appealed for them to stop such behavior and focus on other challenges:

When the UN accused you of being a militant wing of the ruling party, you denied it, claiming loudly that you were “peace-loving proponents of democracy with strong ties to the Republic and inspired by tolerance, victims of a campaign of demonization and slander.” I hope with all my heart that this video is purely for show because despite everything, you are still my brothers and in the eyes of the world, the image you project affects every young person in Burundi. If I were to take you at your word, I would ask you why you insist on providing ammunition to the imperialist colonists that call us savages.

Documented human rights violations

Various organizations have been sounding the alarm on the situation in Burundi. In its World Report 2017, Human Rights Watch called attention to the ethnically motivated exactions made by the Imbonerakure throughout 2016:

Members of the Imbonerakure and police, sometimes armed with guns, sticks or knives, raped women whose male family members were perceived government opponents. In some cases, Imbonerakure threatened or attacked the male relative before raping the woman. Women often continued to receive threats after being raped.

Imbonerakure and police raped women who attempted to cross into Tanzania, apparently to deter them from leaving Burundi.

Imbonerakure set up roadblocks and check points in some provinces. They extorted money, harassed passersby, and, despite having no powers of arrest, arrested people they suspected of having links to the opposition. They also went door to door, extorting money from residents.

Upon returning from a joint mission, the Worldwide Human Rights Movement (FIDH) and its Burundi counterpart announced that they had witnessed crimes that may fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC):

Upon their return from a fact-finding mission to Burundi in March 2016, FIDH and its Burundi member organisation ITEKA reported on 14 April that “the nature of the crimes witnessed by the FIDH delegation could very well fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court” and called upon the Chief Prosecutor to “immediately open a preliminary examination of the situation in Burundi, which is state party to the ICC”. Our organisations appreciate this decision and hope that, considering the seriousness of the crimes committed and the absence of a national judiciary, the ICC will, without delay, open an investigation into the very grave crimes committed in Burundi.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on April 25, 2016 that the ICC will conduct a preliminary examination of the events in Burundi since 2015. In an article on the French-language website, sentinelle-droit-international.fr, Gabin Eyenga explained the process.

A preliminary examination is a process in which all available information regarding a situation is examined in order to determine, in full knowledge of all evidence, if there is a reasonable basis for initiating an investigation according to the criteria set forth by the Rome Statute. This examination does not constitute in any way an investigation, but rather precedes and sets conditions for an investigation. The ICC Prosecutor has made this decision following the qualification of Burundi's humanitarian situation by the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic, as “worrisome.”

Once the preliminary examination of the Burundi situation is finished, the ICC prosecutor will draft her conclusions or a report on the legal classification of the alleged crimes that fall within the court's jurisdiction. The examination will be based on information provided to the ICC.

I am among those who think leaving the ICC is a bad decision, one that only reinforces the impunity of powerful criminals that local jurisdictions are afraid to pursue.

But, what I dislike even more is that this decision is situation-specific. The government in Bujumbura is thinking, “We must do everything to protect ourselves.” In short, they are in a difficult situation. Challenged from within, accused of massive human rights violations, burdened with international sanctions, the legitimacy of Burundi's leadership is in doubt. If the ICC launches an investigation or issues arrest warrants, the Burundi government will look guilty, even if, theoretically, the presumption of innocence should prevail. Allowing the ICC to investigate will further weaken the legitimacy of the government.

Our leaders are not thinking about the future. A popular expression says that while a politician thinks about the next election, a leader thinks about the next generation. In my opinion, if the Burundi government was thinking about the next generation, it would not leave the ICC. In five or 10 years, those in power now may be gone, replaced by others, perhaps much more autocratic (something I don't wish to see). Those who have decided to leave the ICC today may, one day, see their grandchildren calling for this court's protection. But, it will be too late.

Despite these tragic events, President Nkurunziza claimed, in a December 2016 public conference, that he could not refuse to seek another term if his people demanded it of him.

There are about 65 million people worldwide right now who have fled their homeland. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says this is the highest such figure since the second world war. As tragic as that is, it's even more heartbreaking to realize that many of those folks have lost contact with their families.

But help may be on the way.

Two Danish brothers and social entrepreneurs David and Christopher Mikkelsen have found a solution to this challenge. Their platform, REFUNITE, for Refugees United, has registered more than half a million migrants around the world to re-establish lost contact with their families. Here is a video that summarizes the principles of the project:

Earlier this year, the Mikkelsen brothers were named social entrepreneurs of the year by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for their efforts. Upon the announcement, their website published this explanation on how the platform works:

The family reconnection platform is accessible from a simple mobile phone via SMS, USSD, web or a free hotline. Whether it is an Afghan refugee in Pakistan or an internally displaced person in Iraq, anyone in need can search, re-connect and communicate with their missing loved ones – even if they are unable to pay for mobile data.

Despite the gratification of bringing in the 500,000th person onto the REFUNITE platform and starting them on a journey of reconnecting them to their family, the brothers have not forgotten about the significance of the platform:

While this is an achievement to note, it comes with the somber reminder that these are people unable to find their children, siblings, parents and friends. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t stop here: the world is harboring more displaced people than we’ve seen since WWII! And while Syria is responsible for both the largest numbers of its citizens on the run and the most headlines, there are unfortunately many other crises in full bloom, and numerous new ones threatening to erupt at any moment. REFUNITE will continue to work tirelessly to help everyone looking for loved ones to reconnect. Our aim is to continuously build out our platform to provide a digital home and infrastructure to soon millions of displaced people.

REFUNITE is headquartered in Kenya, but was first created in Denmark in collaboration with Ericsson. It is funded by the IKEA Foundation and other private foundations and it has partnership with a global coalition of mobile operators and with Facebook.

So far close to 11 million messages have passed through the platform and has performed over 9 million searches, with 600,000 total registrations all over the world. By 2017 REFUNITE aims to register 1 million displaced people.

A French police officer guards a group of Jews at an internment camp in Drancy. Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv CC-BY-SA 3.0

Electoral campaigns are in full swing for the French presidential election, the first and second rounds of which will be taking be place on 23 April and the 7 May respectively. Four candidates are currently vying for the top two positions in the race, which will prompt a run-off. They are Emmanuel Macron, founder of the En Marche! political movement; Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right-wing Front National; Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing La France insoumise (Unsubmissive France) party; and François Fillon, of the center-right Republican party.

The majority of surveys on the public's voting intentions have suggested for months that Le Pen is at the front of the pack for the first round, but Macron now ties her for the lead. You can find a rundown on the main four running candidates in this article.

In what has become a messy electoral battle, Le Pen has launched a number of personal attacks on her young opponent — including several comments on the Vel d'Hiv Roundup (a dark chapter of Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War).

The tragedy occurred over two days in July 1942 when more than 13,000 people, almost a third of which were children, were arrested in Paris, and then deported to the many German concentration camps. The official website for the Shoah Memorial in Paris, Memorial de la Shoah, recounts the horrific event:

On 16 and 17 July 1942, French law enforcement arrested several thousands of Jews with the aim to deport them to German extermination camps. The Nazi occupiers had decided to clear out both the North and South zones of all men of up to 60 years of age, women of up to 55 years of age, and children aged between 2 and 16 years old. The plan, also known as Operation: Spring Breeze, was carried about by the Nazis with complicity from the Vichy government. It was the largest scale roundup of Jews on French soil during the Second World War. This chapter, commonly referred to as the Vel d'Hiv Roundup, is commemorated on numerous occasions in various areas of France.

France should not claim responsibility for Vel d'Hiv. If anyone should claim responsibility, it should be those who were in power at the time, which was not France. France has been mistreated in memory for many years. We teach our children that it is okay to criticise [the country], to not look at any aspects of history apart from the darkest. I long for them to once again be proud of France.

In response to Le Pen, André Sénik, a professor in philosophy with an interest in the history of the Jewish Diaspora, wrote for French news site causeur.fr on how the Vel d'Hiv tragedy has lived on for the last 50 years through French politics:

It did not even take 50 years for the question to arise: it was in 1992, 50 years after the Vél d'Hiv roundup, that a petition was published by the Vél d'Hiv committee 42 — accompanied by 200 signatures — in Le Monde, asking for the president of the French Republic to recognise, in the name of France, that “the Vichy French state was guilty of persecution and crimes against the Jews of France”. The request came from French Jews and non-Jews alike, and it was only a request for the recognition of historical truth duly put forward by historians — most notably in Robert Paxton's works in 1972. [President] Mitterand refused to respond to the request, by supporting the myth maintained by both the communists and gaullists, which states that France was the resistance, and that the Republic was removed by the Vichy regime, neither France nor the Republic had the obligation to condemn, or even take responsibility for, the crimes committed by the Vichy French state, its leader, its government and its administration, in the name of France.

On the topic of this recognition, Kamal Aref, an essayist and writer for French newspaper Liberation, argued on his blog Courrier du Caire that it wasn't a matter of this or that:

The dark pages of history, as we call them, cease to exist when we have the courage to recognise the mistakes we made, our fears and our weaknesses. France resisted, but France also collaborated. France is also those who died in the camps. Ultimately, France has, 53 years later, recognised its biggest mistake.

But should we be dismayed? Should we not laugh, when representatives of a party with such a putrid history suddenly act as if they were the staunch defence against the Nazis and anti-Semitism?

It's worth remembering that Marine Le Pen is trying to make us believe that she is just Marine Le Pen, and not THE Pen, that is to say her father, Jean-Marie, the very utterance of whom utterly derails her plans.

But there are 13,000 reasons not to laugh: Marine Le Pen, in her cavalier way, evokes the name Vél d'Hiv without having the decency to include the word roundup in memory of the 13,000 Jewish men, women and children who were sent off to their deaths.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, often referred to as “The Devil of the Republic” for his controversial policies and statements, is a man who invokes polarised opinions from the French public. Having expelled him from the Front National in 2015, Marine Le Pen is therefore keen to avoid any connection her political career might have with her father's – despite her own policies also being controversial. Nevertheless, Le Pen's words have provoked a number of reactions on social media. Here is a selection of people's reactions on Twitter:

The victims of #veldhiv have been pulled from eternal rest to serve as a tool in the electoral plot of infamous politicians without brains or morals.

Egged on by the liberated antisemitic discourse of Le Pen's statements, an individual has been captured via CCTV footage vandalising several Jewish graves in a cemetery in Cimiez, Nice, a town known to already avidly support far right policies.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2017/04/21/marine-le-pens-comments-on-the-val-dhiv-roundup-during-wwii-reawaken-frances-painful-past/feed/048.8566132 2.3522220In Madagascar, People Remember One of the Deadliest French Colonial Wars in Historyhttps://globalvoices.org/2017/04/09/in-madagascar-people-remember-one-of-the-deadliest-french-colonial-wars-in-history/
https://globalvoices.org/2017/04/09/in-madagascar-people-remember-one-of-the-deadliest-french-colonial-wars-in-history/#respondSun, 09 Apr 2017 10:35:26 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=610159

Caricature of the evolution of patriotism in Madagascar between 1947 and 2017 by Nino [with “For Sale” on sign in 2017 image] (from Madagascar blog with Nino's permission)

Seventy years ago on March 29, 1947, a war began between the French colonial government and Malagasy nationalist groups that by its conclusion two years later would see over 100,000 Malagasy residents dead, according to the High Commissioner of Madagascar. The number of deaths is remarkable in its sheer number, especially in light of the fact that the total population at the time was 4 million. This figure makes this conflict one of the deadliest of the French colonial period. The repression that the French unleashed vanquished the Malagasy nationalists and Madagascar remained a colony until 1960.

The war came not long after the end of the Second World War in which many Malagasy soldiers fought alongside the French army. The colonized joined the ranks of soldiers in the fight against Nazism and fascism, as well as for the liberation of France. In the Madagascar section of the French Defense Ministry website on the history of WWII called Chemins de Mémoire, French officials note:

Between the two wars, Madagascar’s resources were exploited as the island was modernized. However, the demands of the Malagasy people, as was the case with other colonies, were not met. Despite everything, from 1939 onward the Malagasy people responded to France’s request, with 10,500 of them participating in France’s 1940 campaign and one-third of that number dying in combat. The 3rd and 11th Colonial Infantry Regiments and the 42nd Malagasy Machine Gun Battalion particularly distinguished themselves, while the infantrymen fought bravely within African units.

For many Malagasy soldiers, this participation coupled with the increased political maturity of young intellectuals strengthened their desire for freedom. Following the victory over Nazism and fascism, the Malagasy people demanded greater autonomy within the French Union, as other colonies had achieved. The collaborative website Histoire coloniale et postcoloniale(Colonial and Post-Colonial History), which is written by French colonial historians stated:

In March 1946, two young Malagasy deputies, Joseph Raseta and Joseph Ravoahangy, members of the Democratic Movement for the Renovation of Madagascar (MDRM), lodged a bill with the National Assembly in Paris demanding independence for the island from the French Union. Vincent Auriol, the Assembly president at that time, refused to have the text printed because “it was an indictment against France and actually a call to revolt.” The bill was rejected.

During the next parliamentary elections, in November 1946, the three second college seats (reserved for “indigenous people”) were won by the MDRM leaders, Joseph Ravoahangy, Joseph Raseta and Jacques Rabemananjara.

Against that backdrop, on March 29, 1947, two secret societies unleashed a wave of violence overnight in many locations around Madagascar. Instead of negotiating, however, the French government chose to suppress the uprising, and war began. In an article on the collaborative website Matiere et Evolution (Matter and Evolution), which is managed by history scholars, R. Paris recalled:

The government sent reinforcements to Madagascar, mainly colonial troops (Senegalese infantrymen), a total of 18,000 men by early 1948. The suppression led to many acts of violence and war crimes such as torture, summary executions, forced resettlements and torching of villages.

Among the worst crimes was that of May 6, 1947, when the commandant of Moramanga camp, fearing an attack, had over a hundred MDRM militants, who were imprisoned in wagons, shot. The French army also experimented with a new psychological warfare technique in which suspects were thrown alive from planes to terrorize the villagers in their area.

Wondering “how many were victims of the suppression?” an activist progressive website from southern France, Midi Populaire et Citoyen, attempted to answer, exploring the different attempts to nail down a number:

The numbers quoted before the National Assembly at that time were around 80,000 deaths, an estimate which would be altered by specialists such as Jacques Tronchon. More recently, writer Claude Simon spoke of “Madagascar, where it has been hidden for so long that they killed 100,000 indigenous people in three days during 1947.”

However, according to the latest estimates of certain historians, these numbers could be wrong. Paris Sorbonne University lecturer Jean Fremigacci stated, like other historians, that the number killed during the uprising did not exceed 10,000 (including 140 white people) and that the number of Malagasy who died from malnutrition or disease in zones held by the insurgents had been added to this total.

The number of deaths is still extremely hard to assess, and is probably around 20,000 to 30,000 people,” wrote Mr. Fremigacci.

Erick Rabemananoro, previously a journalist with the Madagascar Tribune, paid tribute to these victims of colonial wars, one of whom was his paternal grandfather. On Facebook, Rabemananoro stated:

I’m honored to tell you about my paternal grandfather, Rabemananoro. In 1942, he was placed in front of a firing squad by France, during the chaos of battles between Vichy France and Allied France, in sight of the Diego Suarez checkpoint and Mahajanga, where he worked.
After this first execution, France reoffended in 1947, having his son and eldest daughter, both MDRM militants, killed by firing squad. The impact of these tragedies had on the family’s life was immense, as were the problems my grandmother had with meeting the needs of the seven orphans left behind.

Regarding that March 29th day when everyone was roused to action, rightly or wrongly, I would just like to spare a thought for all the families who know that they paid a price in spilled blood for the country in the fight against the colonial power. Far from the great theories, grand speeches and other patriotic activities under the guise of anti-colonialism and patriotism.

A treaty was signed on December 17, 1885, which saw protectorate status (implying management of Madagascar foreign relations by France) imposed upon (although the word ‘imposed’ was not used) Madagascar along with payment of a ten million franc indemnity.

In return, the Sakalava territories would revert to the authority of the Malagasy government and the queen given the right to “rule over the administration of the whole island.” In 1888, the queen was even awarded the Grand-Croix of the Légion d'Honneur.

The queen believed that the previous treaty she signed on October 1, 1895, with general Jacques Charles René Achille Duchesne representing France, would guarantee her crown and that the centuries-old Malagasy monarchy would be preserved. However, for the colonial power wishing to expand their empire, the treaty was nothing but a ruse. In the end, the queen was removed from power and exiled in Algiers.

The taking of Madagascar by France, however much it has cost us, whatever the faults or mistakes in preparing the expedition, has been a great and beautiful work. A question, nevertheless, must be asked at this time, when it is important to make the right decision while there is still time. Should we really be the masters of the great southern island? Has the treaty between France and Queen Ranavalona given us specific, uncontested, full entitlement for interior administration as well as with respect to foreigners, the British, Americans, Germans? Have we in fact acquired a domain burdened with many constraints, more or less constant, for which we will have to meet all the expenses but without reaping any advantages with respect to profits?

More than a century later, during a November 2016 conference between the heads of state of the International Organization of La Francophonie at Antananarivo in Madagascar, French President François Hollande recognized that atrocities had been committed by colonial troops during the war:

It’s really because there was this engagement of Malagasy people for France, but also for freedom, that after the Second World War many started to dream about independence and about the growing ambitions of the people. This movement caused an uprising across the whole island in 1947 which was brutally suppressed by France. I pay homage to all the victims of these events, to the thousands of dead, and to all the militants who fought for independence and who were arrested and condemned for their ideas.

It is one thing for the French leaders to recognize these war crimes, but asking for forgiveness and paying out compensation are another. France has claimed its debts from Germany, but so far has neglected to face the consequences of wars started by itself.

In English-speaking regions of Cameroon, the internet has been shut down since January.

This is not unprecedented — when faced with widespread public discontent, some governments respond by blocking access to social networks or the Internet altogether. In Africa, multiple countries have resort to this tactic when threatened by electoral violence, student uprisings, union protests, or political instability following unpopular decisions by the government.

The current unrest in Cameroon's anglophone regions stems from many factors. In a blog post published on courrierdesafriques.net, Bounya Lottin explains why lawyers took to the streets in protest on October 11, 2016.

First among the many problems our English-speaking compatriots find irritating is the issue of ‘common law’ versus ‘droit civil’ [French for ‘civil law’]. While the former is used among anglophones, the latter is used by French-speaking lawyers. The incompatibility between these two systems of justice causes insurmountable complications. Under common law, a holdover from British colonialism, attorneys in English-speaking areas may, depending on the circumstances, act as judge, notary, or court bailiff. This has strongly influenced the way in which anglophone lawyers have been trained. Needless to say, problems occur when the francophone government tries to enforce standards for notaries, bailiffs, and lawyers in anglophone regions.

Escalating feelings of marginalization in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest Regions lie at the heart of this long-lived drama. Anglophones represent approximately 20% of Cameroon's population of 22.5 million.

Teachers, students and unions soon followed suit as they sounded off against the unequal status of the English language in education, business, and institutions. On December 8, 2016, the number of deadly confrontations with police and arrests of protesters quickly escalated in the streets of the Northwest Region capital, Bamenda. There were 4 casualties and serious injuries.

In the face of increasing unrest, access to the internet was cut off in English-speaking areas in mid-January 2017. There have been serious and widespread repercussions since.

Campaign poster for the restoration of internet access in Cameroon – public domain

Access Now, an organization that defends the digital rights of users at risk around the world, has published an open letter on its website addressing the CEOs of Cameroonian telecommunication companies. Twenty civil society organizations from Cameroon, Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere have signed the document.

By blocking access to information and services, the disruption thwarts the exercise of human rights, including the freedoms of expression and association, and slows economic development, seriously harming the innovative businesses dependent on your services. We estimate the shutdown has already cost more than US$1.39 million and grows daily. However, this conservative estimate does not take into account the long-term effects of factors such as the disruption of supply chains and of the significant amount of remittances that Cameroonians living abroad send to these regions.

We have noticed that this situation has forced a good number of startups to move to neighboring towns that still have access to the internet. Many young startup entrepreneurs from Buea are now in Douala and some from Bamenda have moved to Bafoussam.

Efforts made through social media to restore internet access have remained strong. The hashtag #bringbackourinternet has been created, but, for the moment, has seen little success.

The blackout continues, despite the fact that as far back as 2012, Alexandre Salque noted on 01net.com, one of France's most visited sites specializing in information technology, that the UN (of which Cameroon is a member) has recognized access to the internet as a basic human right.

Historic event. For the first time, the UN recognizes that access to the internet is a fundamental right, equivalent to other human rights. The 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council unanimously signed a resolution stating that every individual has the right to internet access and online freedom of expression.

Subsequently, in July 2016, during its 32nd session, the same group adopted by consensus a further resolution on freedom of expression on the internet.

The Human Rights Council…also condemns unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online in violation of international human rights law, and calls upon all States to refrain from and cease such measures.

The Human rights Council…calls upon all States to address security concerns on the Internet in accordance with their international human rights obligations to ensure protection of freedom of expression, freedom of association, privacy and other human rights online, including through national democratic, transparent institutions, based on the rule of law, in a way that ensures freedom and security on the Internet so that it can continue to be a vibrant force that generates economic, social and cultural development.

Unfortunately, the Cameroon government has decided to ignore its obligations to such international resolutions and continues to attack freedom of expression as evidenced by threats from the National Communication Council (NCC) on January 20, 2017 to suspend or close several media outlets. The Union of Cameroonian journalists has called on the Cameroonian authorities to put an end to threats against the media and journalists and to engage in a constructive dialogue with the media on their role in Cameroon's society.

Following the 1884 Berlin Conference, when European powers divided Africa among themselves, Germany ruled German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), until 1915.

Between 1904 and 1908, German colonialists committed a holocaust against the Herero and the Nama, exterminating as many as 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama. In one particularly gruesome detail, some of the victims’ skulls were even sent to Germany for scientific research into supposed racial inequality.

Eventually, under the leadership of Chief Samuel Maharero, members of these two tribes mounted a successful revolt against the Germans, retaking their lands, and putting an end to widespread rape by German occupiers and other forms of degradation. They fought a guerrilla war leading to a situation Véronique Chemla described on her blog as “a major conflict”. Véronique Chemla, an international affairs journalist for American Thinker, Ami and FrontPage Mag, explains:

On Jan. 12, 1904, “while the German troops were busy trying to suppress the “rebellion” of the Bondelswartz Nama in the south, the Okahandja Herero, exasperated by injustices committed by [Station Commander Lieutenant Ralph] Zürn and the continued loss of their territory, attacked German farms, businesses and the colonial infrastructure. These attacks led to a brutal repression by the soldiers and colonials, who held lynchings and indiscriminate reprisals.”

In Germany, following the “exaggerated descriptions of these attacks, a real desire for war developed.”

While the violence continued to spread, the local uprising transformed into a major conflict, forcing Maharero to side with the “rebels.” To the great annoyance of Berlin politicians, his men at first succeeded in resisting [Colonial Administrator Theodor] Leutwein’s troops by use of guerilla techniques. Leutwein was relieved of his command and replaced by the ruthless General Lothar von Trotha who arrived at the colony in June 1904 with thousands of men.

General Lothar Von Trotha led 15,000 men in a ruthless campaign of repression. On Oct. 2, 1904, he ordered his officers to carry out the systematic extermination of members of the two tribes, as described by a post on Le Blog de Daniel Giacobi. Giacobi is a french history professor:

The Herero are no longer German subjects. If they do not accept this, they will be forced to with arms. [They] must leave the country, otherwise I will remove them with the “groot Rohr” [large cannon]
… Any Herero seen inside German [Namibian] frontiers, whether armed or not, will be executed. Women and children will be taken out of the country — or shot. No male prisoners will be taken. They will be shot. This decision has been made regarding the Herero people. Within German frontiers, each Herero, whether armed or not, with cattle or not, will be killed. I will not receive any more women or children. I will send them back to their own, or I will have them shot. […]

My policy has always been to control this using brutal terror and even cruelty. I will use floods of money to annihilate the insurgent tribesmen in torrents of blood. This is the only seed which will grow into something new and stable.

In the August 1904, at the Battle of Waterberg, the Herero and Nama were surrounded, “leaving the only escape route across the Kalahari desert, where the water points had been poisoned.”

As a finishing touch, he installed guards, giving them a formal order to kill any Herero of any age or either gender. The result was a systematic massacre that some estimate at between 25,000 and 40,000 dead (others speak of 60,000 victims).

Vincent Hiribarren, a lecturer at King's College London in African and World History, runs the libeafrica4.blogs.liberation.fr website, which published an interview by Jean-Pierre Bat with Leonor Faber-Jonker, a historian at the University of Utrecht, who described the extermination methods used by the Germans:

This was actually the policy that von Trotha had been following, although unstated, since the Waterberg attack. During the battle, any Herero who managed to escape the circle of Germans surrounding them fled toward Omaheke. Von Trotha ordered their pursuit, methodically scouring the terrain and taking out the water points. Pushed toward the desert, these Herero eventually died of dehydration and hunger. This pursuit also had repercussions for the Germans.

Copies of the written order were shown when Herero were captured, and they were forced to watch the execution of some of their prisoner comrades, before being sent into the desert so they could bear witness to what they had seen and discourage other Herero from returning.

The colonials behaved appallingly, stealing land and raping Herero and Nama women. The Holocaust Memorial website highlighted that most colonials who took the Herero land and cattle treated the Africans with a total lack of respect.

Rape was common, exacerbated by the shortage of German women. The fear of the German people (Volk) of racial degeneration led ultimately to the ban on mixed marriages in September 1905. Ideas of racial difference were based on late 19th century German anthropology, which established a distinction between races deemed “civilized” and those considered “primitive.” It was hoped to gain an understanding of the human species through the objective observation of “primitives,” like those people exhibited in human zoos (highly popular in Europe at that time).

In 2011, eleven skulls from the genocide were finally discovered in Namibia. Until then, this atrocity had remained hidden, as highlighted by the Holocaust Memorial site:

The Blue Book, an official report by the British government listing the atrocities committed in German South West Africa, and compiled shortly after the reconquest of the colony during the First World War, was censored in 1926 in the interest of the new unity. Following this, the German perspective viewing the genocide as an heroic colonial war literally dominated the memorial landscape as the former colony was inundated with monuments and street names commemorating the German war effort. After 1945, the colonial past was all but forgotten in Germany. In South West Africa, the suppression of the apartheid regime stifled any public debate about genocide. Descendants of the victims had the task of keeping the memory of the genocide alive, both by commemorative events and oral tradition.

Finally, in July 2015, the German government agreed to label “the events that took place” as an official genocide, following recognition of the Armenian genocide. But the government had still failed to issue a formal apology or indicate a desire to give compensation. This led to a meeting from last October at the Berlin French Center, uniting supporters from several countries to affirm the right of the Herero and Nama communities to be directly involved in negotiating a resolution that includes recognition of the genocide, an appropriate and sincere formal apology to the affected communities, and payment of fair compensation to these two communities, who continue to suffer the ill-effects of the genocide.

Since Namibia gained independence in 1990, descendants of victims — together with human rights groups (in particular, Jewish supporters) from Germany, the United States, Botswana, and South Africa — have fought to win recognition of the genocide, nearing a major victory in court. This July, New York Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain will hear a complaint against Berlin by the victims’ descendants.